Enderp's Game starring Harrison Ford

Sorry, spelling fans, but that's my passive aggressive "fuck you" to Orson Scott Card for being such a terrible person and writer outside of this one good thing he did. In any case:



And the accompanying EXCLUSIVE story. I think it's a missed opportunity to have Paul Verhoeven do his thing, but I guess a faithful interpretation could work.

Goddamn, this is being made and it isn't Verhoeven? That's just wrong.

Also, not to glorify violence, but is the story really going to work without the kid-on-kid brutality that has such an impact on the narrative? I have a hard time seeing a mainstream film going anywhere near the early maybe-murder or the later shower fight, and both are pretty core to the thing.

(Also, Card is a terrible person. Really, just the worst.)

Oh, I have a feeling they can pull it off. In fact, I expect I know exactly how they made it persuasive.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

8-year-olds, dude.

ENDER SHOULD NOT BE AS TALL AS GRAFF

Didn't they age them all up to teens to make it more acceptable?

Personally, I'd like to believe it was there to distance themselves from Card's creepo pedigree.

I don't remember the black kids having to wear yellow jumpsuits (and black socks!) in the book.

Honestly I had always hoped that the movie would remain in Development Hell. Primarily to keep Card from getting Hollywood money off of it, but also for the fact that it's nigh impossible to adapt the book for the screen while staying true to the source material.

There's just so many ways to screw it up.

I think the kid in yellow is the only one in uniform (couple of more in the background). The rest are in their socks.

Oh yeah, I guess those aren't socks. I could be wrong but it looks like the other person in uniform in the background is also black. Just seems a little weird.

Card being a massive throbbing wanker aside, his short stories are quite good, and Maps in a Mirror is one of the few books I own that I've read more than once.

When I was a teenager, long before I knew Card was a dick, I read a short story he wrote about this parasitic infant, and it made me really happy because (I thought at the time) FINALLY someone gets how I feel about babies...

Wait, Ender's Game is Science Fiction? I always thought it was about wizards or something. Ender is a much better wizard name.

In the book, it's a corruption of "Andrew", given mockingly by his childhood peers because he's a "Third", a third child in a world where there's a mandated two-child limit. But his parents are Heroic Mormons, so it's okay.

Card is a dipshit, but I love his books, what can I say? My wife feels the same way.

It's wierd that the kids are so old. :(

His father was catholic and from a "non-compliant" family with way more than the allowed # of children. I don't remember what his mother was. Maybe she was a heroic mormon.

That sounds like something Wardell would write.

Not enough comma splices; sentences are too coherent.

Despite the flaws with Card's writing (and not even getting into his status as a horrible human being), the book is really, really good.

Is this the part where people start tearing apart the book as Card's love letter to fascism and comparing Ender to Hitler?

I mostly agree, although I think I was in the high school when I read it.

I think the arguments about all of Ender's sociopathic violence being narratively rationalized are valid to some extent - but I also think that's the point of the story. What I took away from it, even in high school, was that in times of extreme need society finds it acceptable and advantageous to treat the extraordinarily gifted as tools or weapons, and damn the consequences. On the one hand you have the view that the book is an anti-war polemic (comparing the tendency in military doctrine to dehumanize the enemy with the book's literal dehumanization of the enemy) that gets subverted at the end where Ender empathizes with the buggers - and destroys them anyway because it's what he's been told must be done.

It was space or something.

Hey, where's Bean in that picture?

Sadly I remember why. His parents were given permission to have a Third because of their good genes, and that Peter and whatever the sisters name were were talented, but both possessed flaws in what they wanted to use them for (killing Buggers). Peter was too cruel and the sister was too compassionate. They wanted to try the Third to see if they could get the middle ground. Or something like that. It's been a while.

Guess I can just skip that "reading" I was going to do now. Thanks!

You're not seriously complaining about spoilers for a novel from 1985.

I use the declarative here because the alternative is unthinkable.

I just hope that Plinkett's review of Titanic doesn't spoil the ending!

"I'll never let go!"

*lets go*

Probably not introduced until later? He was on a later launch.

No, I'm not. Just giving Nute a hard time, as required by law.

I KEEL YOU DRAKE.

Dude. C'mon. This is actually worse than bitching about learning who Luke's father is.

You really think Ender's Game has that level of exposure? Seriously?

Harrison Ford?

It's been translated into 29 languages and has had over 25 printings since it was first published in 1985, so yeah, I do.

I would feel safe mentioning Star Wars to anyone and them knowing what I was talking about. Ender's Game... not so much.

That seems like an entirely fair boundary to set.

Worth noting, people read much less now.

Star Wars is inescapable. Ender's Game must be sought out.